CHAPTER XI GUNNAR TURNS FREY ABOUT AGAINST FREY'S WILL
Sigrid told Gunnar that the old priest of Frey who lived in the village, and who had been the man wishful to slay him on the altar, intended to have a sacrifice on the morrow. "Oh, does he so?" said Gunnar. "And what is he going to sacrifice?"
She said, "It is a boy."
"We will see about that," Gunnar said. "It may be that it will be himself who gets the worst of it."
The next day, before the hour of sacrifice, Gunnar told Sigrid to go into the court and leave him to draw the curtains. She did as she was told. The people assembled, and he heard their singing, and the stamping of their feet as they danced about the victim. Then they all called on Frey, and he peeped through the curtains and saw the old man in a crown of leaves, with his knife in his hand, and the victim naked except for a loin-cloth, bound up tightly with cords. There also was the basket of osier. Having done what he wished to do in the temple, he drew the curtains. To their great consternation they saw that Frey had his back to them instead of his face. Gunnar, who had come out by a side door, joined Sigrid in the gallery of the temple. They sat close together looking at the amazed people.
The old man gave a shrill cry. "Frey abandons us! He is angry." Then he turned to his flock and spoke vehemently, but Gunnar could not hear his words. Sigrid watched them with keen and bitter eyes.
Presently the old man turned again and beckoned to Gunnar. He, however, sat where he was. Then he was hailed by his enemy. "You, stranger, come down."
Gunnar said, "I am a servant of the temple, and will not come down. Do you come up rather and say what you have to say."
The old man then came shuffling up, with his gown dragging at his ankles. When he stood before Gunnar, he was out of breath, and that added to his rage.
Gunnar asked him what the matter was, and Whitebeard gnashed his gums together.
"The matter is that Frey is angry—not because of sacrifice, but because there has been none since you came here. There must be much more blood shed—and the sooner the better."
"I assure you," Gunnar replied, "that there will be bloodshed if you persist, and that blood will be your own."
Whitebeard looked fiercely at him. "You are talking foolishly. Who would shed my blood? And how would that be pleasing to my master Frey?"
Gunnar replied, "I will tell you the answer to your questions. To your first: I would very willingly shed your blood, and your blood is the only blood that I would willingly shed. And I believe that all these people would dip their hands in it and show it to Frey, who would then turn his face to them again. As for your second, it is plain that Frey is displeased with your present sacrifice."
Whitebeard was in a great rage. He put his face close to Gunnar's and said whispering (but Sigrid heard him), "It was you who turned Frey about."
"It was," said Gunnar.
"You own to your blasphemy. For blasphemy it is, though you said nothing."
"Take it so," said Gunnar.
The old man looked about him, not knowing what to do next. His eyes fell upon Sigrid, who stood stiffly by with fixed looks.
"Mistress," he said then, "Frey's wife, what say you?" She shivered.
"There must be no sacrifice," she said. "Frey will not have it."
"But you heard this man tell me that he turned Frey about?"
"I did," she said. "He did so at my desire."
"You own yourself party to his wicked mind?"
"His mind is the mind of Frey in this," she said.
The old man frowned deeply. "You avow that?"
"I do."
"Did Frey confide it to you?"
"He did."
"When this man Gunnar was not there?"
"He was not there."
The old man tossed his arms up. "There is no more to say."
Then Gunnar, even while his enemy stood by him, addressed the people. He said, "I come from a distant country, where Frey has been had in honour, but not in your way. Your way is beastliness and great shame to you because you read into the mind of the God what is the secret pleasure of the vilest of you, such as this old toothless man here. He, loving to see men's blood flow, believes that Frey takes joy in it also. But Frey knows very well that a man is better than a beast, and if he love the smell of beasts' blood, that is his affair, but the blood of men is more honourable than that, and reserved for better work. He says that I put into the mind of Frey to be done with the slaughter of men. Have it that I did; did I not well to bring his mind to what is excellent in men? Of what use to Frey, or what pleasure can he have in the blood of base or craven men? I said that I would shed the blood of this vile old man, and so I would if I thought that Frey would be the better of it. But the fact is that it would make the ground sick, and Frey would curse you for the gift. Have done with that, and be sure that Frey does not need blood at all, but honesty and the good works of your hands. If you have children, offer them to Frey, but alive, not dead. Shed marrow rather than blood, and Frey will approve your fruitfulness and bless the seed and the seed-plot. And if blood must be shed, let Frey shed his own for you, as the God of the Christians did, Who gives His people every day His body to eat and His blood to drink—which turn in their breasts to milk and in their veins to courage. Let Frey show himself such a God, and you will have no need for lascivious-minded old men to lead you into their own nasty vices." Then turning to Whitebeard, he said, "Get you gone, old monster, and gnash your gums apart where none can see your impotent malice."
The people applauded him when he had done. Some brought branches of trees, and some nests of eggs to Frey. Then Gunnar turned him round to face them, and they rejoiced.
But Sigrid was pale and trembling, and would not look at Gunnar or speak to him all the rest of the day. She stood about by Frey, and put her hand in his, and talked to him, sometimes touching his beard.
Gunnar made the best of it, and let her alone; but seeing her next day in the same mood of alienation, he asked her what the matter was, and "Is there anything I can do about it?" She began to tremble again, and violently; but she used all her force to control herself, and presently told him that all he could do was to leave the place. "If you seek my happiness," she said, "that is what you will do."
"Well," said Gunnar, "I do wish you happy, sweetheart."
"Ah," said she, "it is your sweethearting of me that has made this trouble."
"Well," he said again, "and it does make trouble, my dear; but it is a pleasant trouble when all's said; and there's a remedy for it."
"It is that which I desire," she said, and he said, "So do I desire it."
Then she said, "Do you know what you did yesterday? You made me untrue to Frey."
"How so?"
"Why, you drove me to say what was untrue. He did not speak his mind to me. That is not true. Or if he did, what he said was quite otherwise."
"You mean," said Gunnar, "that the mind of Frey, as you understand it, is not my mind."
"Certainly it is not," she said. "He hates you. He does not rest because of you."
Gunnar looked at her. "You mean, I believe, that you do not rest."
She stamped her foot. "It is the same thing. If he does not rest, how can I rest?"
Gunnar said, "It is not at all the same thing. And do you think you would rest better if I went away?"
She shook her head, but did not speak. He saw that she was crying.
"Well," said he after a while, "then I shall not go, but will stay here and make Frey a little more friendly."
"Ah," she said in her tears, "you won't do that. He is jealous of you. You can see it."
"I see nothing of it, I assure you," Gunnar said, "and he has no cause. But there are many ways of curing jealousy, one of which is easy." She waited to hear what it was, but without asking. She wanted to know very badly, but Gunnar did not tell her what it was. So after a while of waiting she said, "You are hateful; I hate you," and walked away. Gunnar went out into the sun; and by and by she came back with needlework and sat where she could see him at his business of tending the temple-garth; but she would not speak to him for the rest of the day.
The season wore to the winter. With the first snow and the fall of the leaf men began to make ready for the winter feasts. There was now no question of Gunnar going. No man could travel that country in the winter when the days are but a few hours long, and the snow is deep and bends the trees to the earth. Gunnar, who did not want to go at all, put it jokingly to Sigrid that perhaps the god of the wolves wanted a human sacrifice, and that perhaps it was himself they wanted. She showed him her eyes full of trouble, and he was touched.
"You don't wish me to say that?"
She said, "I cannot bear you to talk lightly of such things."
"Frey would be glad of such a sacrifice, I am thinking."
She left him instantly and went to Frey. But she soon came back again. She was never long away from where he happened to be.
THE WINTER FEASTS